New York, March 2, 2026, 13:15 EST — Regular session
- Nvidia plans to put $2 billion apiece into Lumentum and Coherent, aiming to strengthen its data-center optics supply chain.
- Shares of Coherent and Lumentum surged midday. Nvidia was up, too.
- These deals are drawing new attention to photonics—moving data with light—as AI infrastructure faces fresh strains.
Shares in Coherent Corp and Lumentum Holdings surged Monday midday, with both optics suppliers riding a wave of AI enthusiasm after Nvidia unveiled $2 billion investments in each. Coherent shot up around 14%, Lumentum added 8%. Nvidia’s own stock climbed nearly 3%.
The spotlight shifts to a less-hyped part of the AI supply chain: lasers, cables, and optical gear connecting chips in data centers. With bigger models, shuttling data inside these clusters is quickly turning into the real bottleneck.
Photonics means data moves via light instead of electrons. In tightly packed AI hardware, optical links manage higher bandwidth and generate less heat than copper at comparable ranges.
Nvidia characterized its deal with Lumentum as a nonexclusive, multiyear arrangement. The agreement comes with a multibillion-dollar purchase commitment and includes future access to capacity for advanced laser components. “AI has reinvented computing and is driving the largest computing infrastructure buildout in history,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement. NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia disclosed a separate deal with Coherent that includes a multibillion-dollar commitment to buy advanced laser and optical networking gear—plus future rights to access and capacity. “We are proud to expand our 20-year relationship with NVIDIA,” Coherent chief Jim Anderson said in a statement. NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia snapped up 7,788,161 Coherent shares at $256.80 apiece—laying out $2 billion in cash—in a private placement, according to a Coherent regulatory filing. The document notes Nvidia will gain rights to five more Coherent product lines linked to “co-packaged optics,” technology that places optical components right next to the chip package. Securities and Exchange Commission
Optics names surged in a choppy session, with crude spiking over 8% as traders braced for possible broader Middle East fallout. The main indexes diverged. “At times when there is nervousness, people will go to the leaders in the market,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading. Reuters
Nvidia is pitching its optics investment as a strategy to keep its lead, with cloud giants rolling out their own custom chips and competitors hunting for ways around standard electrical connections. Last year, Marvell struck a $3.25 billion deal to acquire photonics firm Celestial AI. Meta, for its part, entered a $60 billion AI chip supply agreement with Advanced Micro Devices, according to a Reuters report published Monday.
Investors see a clear takeaway here: rising AI spend drives demand for GPUs, which bumps up the need for optical links. Suppliers nearest the choke points may re-rate rapidly. But any shift in customer design or schedule can pull those gains right back.
Still, photonics isn’t an overnight solution. Building new fabs is slow going, qualifying optical parts at large volumes isn’t easy, and if data-center spending stalls, it’s usually the smaller optics firms that feel the pinch before the big chip players do.
The Optical Fiber Communication Conference is set for March 15–19 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and traders are eyeing updates on co-packaged optics and next-gen links.
